Below is the executive summary of the newly released International Crisis Group entitled "Turkey and Iraqi Kurds: Conflict or Cooperation?"

At a time when rising Arab-Kurdish tensions again threaten Iraq’s stability, neighbouring Turkey has begun to cast a large shadow over Iraqi Kurdistan. It has been a study in contrasts: Turkish jets periodically bomb suspected hideouts of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, PKK) in northern Iraq, and Ankara expresses alarm at the prospect of Kurdish independence, yet at the same time has significantly deepened its ties to the Iraqi Kurdish region. Both Turkey and Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG, a term Turkey studiously avoids) would be well served by keeping ultra-nationalism at bay and continuing to invest in a relationship that, though fragile and buffeted by the many uncertainties surrounding Iraq, has proved...

Iraqis inspect the damage following air strikes by Turkish warplanes in Qandil, 16 December 2007.

Turkish airstrikes over the weekend reportedly aiming to level PKK sanctuaries in Kurdistan have also appeared to score a direct hit against US-Iraqi relations, though much of the public demonstration of Iraqi discontent being...